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Editor of the Week

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Editor of the Week in recognition of your improvements to the topic of Mythology. Thank you for the great contributions! (courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)

User:JustBerry submitted the following nomination for Editor of the Week:

Joining Wikipedia in December 2016, Katolophyromai has made thousands of improvements across several GA (good articles) in the field of ancient mythology, including Inanna, Athena, and Pythagoras. Taking his knowledge in subjects like religion, mythology, and ancient history, he has added significant scholarly depth to articles about Greek mythology, such as Adonis, by adding whole sections to articles. A member of a number of humanities-themed WikiProjects, including WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome and WikiProject Religion, Katolophyromai takes the time to improve the appearance, scholarliness, and coverage of articles in articles pertaining to ancient history and mythology. Quoted from his user page, "[he intends] to hopefully one day earn a PhD in the classics and become a classics professor." Thank you, Katolophyromai, for all of your dedicated efforts.

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

{{User:UBX/EoTWBox}}

WikiProject Mythology

Katolophyromai

Editor of the Week for the week beginning June 17, 2018

Thousands of improvements resulting in several GA (good articles) in the field of ancient mythology. Knowledgeable in subjects like religion, mythology, and ancient history, he adds scholarly depth to articles about Greek mythology. A member of a number of humanities-themed WikiProjects, including WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome and WikiProject Religion.

Recognized for

adding Knowledge to Mythology articles

Notable work(s)

Inanna, Athena, and Pythagoras, Adonis.

Submit a nomination

Thanks again for your efforts! ―Buster7 ☎ 12:25, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Removed content

I’ll let you decide where and how (but not when) to restore this important and relevant content (please restore it now, or I will, thank you):

In Nippur, Ninurta was worshiped as part of a triad of deities including his father, Enlil and his mother, Ninlil. In variant mythology, his mother is said to be the harvest goddess Ninhursag. The consort of Ninurta was Ugallu in Nippur and Bau when he was called Ningirsu. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 21:16, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

You must be busy now, so I’ve taken the liberty of restoring the content. I’m now watching the page, so please feel free to move it if you think it would be more appropriate elsewhere in the intro or in another section altogether. Thank you! WikiEditorial101 (talk) 22:22, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Respectful request

I kindly ask that you not mix editing with religious beliefs or biases or any statements deriding anyone’s belief system; saying that a god “isn’t real” is not only irrelevant to this scholarship, but is disrespectful. This is no different than an editor claiming that Jesus is mythological in the context of editing differences. Though obscure, the worship of this deity continues. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 21:27, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Ninurta

Please consider minimizing the introduction in Ninurta, as, of course, the entire point of the introduction is a summery of the ‘’most basic’’ elements of the subject. As it stands now, it reads as if one is made to dive right into the greater material, which seems to defeat the purpose of an intro/basic summery. I’d do it, but I think that you would do it better than me. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 21:48, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I took a shot at it, hope I didn’t mutilate your hard work too much! Thank you for all you do here, your efforts are greatly appreciated. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 23:10, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: The two paragraphs I had for the lead were perfectly acceptable for an article of this length. Generally leads for "Featured Articles" tend to be much longer than that, but, since Ninurta is still a relatively short article, I did not want to push the lead to the maximum four paragraphs. I generally do not like leads that are extremely short (or extremely long, though ones of that variety are less common) and a lead much shorter than the one I had would not have been an adequate summary of the contents of the article. I have not had time yet to examine the changes you have made to the article. I will probably keep some, but revert others. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:20, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Nimrod

In regards to scholarly theories that actually hold weight, if anything, Nimrod was Gilgamesh. This speculation would be an interesting addition to the Identity theories section if you get around to it. Cheers! WikiEditorial101 (talk) 23:02, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: The identification between Nimrod and Ninurta is supported in an overwhelming number of reliable, scholarly sources, which are cited in the article; whereas I have only found one that even mentions any possibility of him being associated with Gilgamesh, which the source only mentions in passing before dismissing it in favor of an identification with Ninurta. We are supposed to rely on reliable sources, not our own personal views. It does not matter if you think a theory is credible or not; what matters is whether credible scholars support it.

Now I see you have made a massive number of changes to the article while I was at dinner. Fair warning, it will probably take me a while to sort through all of them, but I will probably be reverting many of them. From what I have seen, you appear to have introduced a lot of uncited content and original research and removed a lot of cited information. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:10, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I did not include anything regarding Gilgamesh in the Ninurta article, so I don’t know why you’d mention my comment (regarding him) in this context. You apprear to be confusing the Ninurta article with the Nimrod article. It’s understandable, considering how much work you’ve been doing. I’m also not sure why you’d presume anything about what research I’ve been “introduced to”, or why you’d falsely accuse me of removing any cited material (in fact, I removed nothing at all). In regards to the theories surrounding the identity of this figure, as an incusionist I believe that content should be preserved whenever possible, often even when not cited. However, any reference to these theories in the intro should be kept to a concise minimum, else it ceases to be an intro. I’ll assume on good faith that your “warning” was not a threat, but with all due respect I’d like to point out that you do not own any Wikipedia articles that you create or expand, and this article is still subject to the consensus of other editors. There is no place for hostility in creating an online encyclopedia. If I have made any errors, they were unintentional and in pursuit of improving the article. Having said that, I’m willing to get other editors involved, and don’t cave to bullying, nor participate in editing wars. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 23:22, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: My comment about Gilgamesh was responding to your comment here, not anything you wrote in the article. As I have stated above, I have not had time yet to review everything you changed; I mainly just know that a lot is different and some things that were there before are not where they were when I last checked up on it; while others things have been added, seemingly without references. I do not yet know if the content I was referring to has just been moved or if it has been removed. I am trying to go back through the edit history right now.

None of what I said here was intended as a threat, just a notification that I am trying to go back through your changes and some of them will probably be reverted. I was not claiming authorial privilege or anything; I am just concerned about the quality of the article. Part of the reason why I may seem so fussy is because I have nominated the article Ninurta for Good Article status and I am trying to keep the quality up so that it can pass review. Your recent editing flurry resulted in a lot of changes and I am concerned about whether those changes were improvements. As for Nimrod, other encyclopedias I have looked at have devoted a large quantity of attention to the relationship between Ninurta and Nimrod, so it is something that has to be discussed in our article to a great extent as well. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:34, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I understand your frustrations, but I think that your nomination of the article may have been a bit hasty. Also, please assume good faith. I understand that you’ve contributed a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears to these articles, but I also see that you’re a relatively new editor; eventually you’ll learn to relax a bit and not be so defensive. It’s only natural to be defensive about your contributions, but just try to remember that we all want the same things here: quality and accuracy. In due time you’ll also learn that it’s wise to review any changes before making wild accusations. And you’ll soon find out that, around here, “warning” someone that you will likely revert their edits before you’ve even seen them will definitely be percieved as a threat. As someone with a GA under his belt, I can tell you that it’s more important to take more time to get the article right than to get that coveted plus sign. Take your time. I’ll likely be weighing in with the reviewer on this one and will continue to watch closely. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 23:47, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Royal Game of Ur

On 17 June 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Royal Game of Ur, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the board game, the Royal Game of Ur, was first played in ancient Mesopotamia over 4,500 years ago? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Royal Game of Ur. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Royal Game of Ur), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Lord of Barley

Excuse me, sir, but I have contributed absolutey no content to this article, and have only restored content that you removed and also moved content around. I’ll assume good faith and ask you to please review the article as it was before you began editing it. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 00:10, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: Per WP:BURDEN, if something is uncited and has been removed, you should not restore it unless you have a reliable source to support it, especially if it directly contradicts a cited statement that is already in the article. --Katolophyromai (talk) 00:12, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I don’t disagree with that. I merely corrected you, as you seemed to be under the impression that I was the one who originated the statement. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 00:14, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: Well, I had no reason to assume that it did not originate with you, seeing as you were the one who put it there and you gave no explanation of where it came from in your edit summary.

For your further information, there seems to be a great deal of confusion here over citations in the lead. WP:CITELEAD states:

Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.

Now, if you look at articles that have recently been promoted to "Featured Article" status, they interpret this to mean that the lead should usually be an uncited summary of the body of the article. In other words, the lead itself should be uncited, but there should be nothing in the lead that is not described in greater depth and with relevant citations in the body of the article. So far, I have personally rewritten and promoted sixteen articles to "Good Article" status and this is how reviewers generally expect the lead section to be handled. In fact, during one of those reviews, the reviewer pointed out that there was a citation in the lead and asked me to remove it.

In the version of the article from before you made all your changes today, everything in the body of the article was sourced to a reliable source and the lead was a summary of the body, so the "This article needs additional citations for verification" tag you added was unnecessary. I have not removed it yet, though, because you moved statements from the lead into the body, where they were not appropriate, and restored uncited statements from earlier revisions. You also removed a statement from the lead as "unsourced speculation," apparently not realizing that it was, in fact, meticulously cited and there were several paragraphs explaining this in the last section. --Katolophyromai (talk) 00:32, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I’m very proud of you for the articles you’ve rewritten that were promoted to GA status. Great work!

Well, I had no reason to assume that it did not originate with you, seeing as you were the one who put it there and you gave no explanation of where it came from in your edit summary.

So you mean to tell me that you were wholly unaware of what content that you had previously removed due to it being uncited? I thought that it was reasonable for me to assume that you were at least peripherally aware of your own edits, hence the confusion.

Again, I acknowledge and appreciate that you’re doing good work. Now just work on having good faith, being cognizant of your own edits, and being civil. Being nasty or closed to the contributions of others does not forward our mission. Try not to take any edits as a personal attack on your work. Good luck on the review and happy editing! WikiEditorial101 (talk) 00:45, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: I apologize; I do not make a habit of memorizing everything that is in an article before I start rewriting it, especially if it is uncited and I am removing it. Obviously, I did not remember that particular tidbit well enough to recognize it when you restored it, but, in fairness, I will point out that I removed the statement in question on 5 June, which was almost two weeks ago. That is a long time to expect someone to remember something with verbal accuracy and where it came from, especially given how much reading and writing I have done about this deity over the past two weeks in the course of rewriting the article virtually from scratch.

Thank you very much for your complement about my work here. I most sincerely apologize if I have come across as rude to you; that was never my intention. It just happens that I tend to be very blunt about changes that I see as problematic. I have no doubt that your intentions here are entirely pure, and you actually did make several worthy improvements to the article, which I am grateful for. I will also be honest that I can sometimes be rather protective of articles that I have devoted a great deal of time and effort towards improving. There are, I think, three main reasons why I have been frustrated tonight, none of which are really any moral fault of yours:

1. I came home from dinner and was really hoping for a relaxing evening when I found I had nearly a full page of edits to sort through plus several message here on my talk page to reply to and that caused me to enter a sort of panic. I imagine the number of edits probably could not have been helped, but it would have been helpful if you could give more descriptive edit summaries of what changes you are making and why. Really, I think this one is mostly just me overreacting.
2. While I am certain you know far more about Lydia Canaan than I ever will and you have admittedly been editing Wikipedia longer than I have (though only by just over two years, since your first edit was on 8 August 2014 and mine was on 3 December 2016), I do not think you understood until my last reply here that I know actually quite a bit more than you do when it comes to ancient Mesopotamian mythology and promoting articles to "Good Article" status. I have spent probably nearly the last four years intently reading scholarly sources about ancient Mesopotamian myths, I have rewritten many of the articles on the subject here on Wikipedia, and I hope to eventually become a professor and teach a subject relating to ancient history at a university level. I think your knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia, though, (and this is only my best guess based on your contributions and your comments to me on my talk page) comes mostly from popular writings on the subject, which is not problematic unless you are trying to write an encyclopedia on the subject using scholarly sources and reflecting scholarly viewpoints. Similarly, while I have not been here quite as long as you, I have devoted much of my time here to bringing articles up to "Good Article" status. By this point, after eighteen solo "Good Article" nominations for articles I wrote mostly myself (two of which failed; sixteen of which succeeded), two successful nominations/co-nominations for articles mostly written by others, and a successful "Featured List" mostly written by myself, I think I have a pretty good impression of what the standard is around here.
3. There tend to be a lot of communication problems whenever we are editing together, with you misunderstanding things I am doing and, as this case shows, me misunderstanding things you are doing. An example of this tendency for confusion would be our argument over who added the uncited passage about Ninurta's family; you said I added it and I said you added it, when it turned out the paragraph was in the article before either of us edited it, but I had removed it and you had restored it. This may be a result of the fact that we seem to keep finding ourselves editing the same article at the same time combined with the inherently poor level of ability for anyone to communicate effectively over the internet. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:56, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@Katolophyromai: Thank you for your transparency and honesty. I really appreciate your understanding of the importance of thorough communication (and, conversely, the pitfalls of miscommunication—and also for acknowledging how much meaning can get lost in textual communications). It’s all the unknown little details that the Devil is in. If only I consistently maintained an active awarness that there are other human beings on the other end of the net. I’m so sorry that I ruined your evening. And I’m sorry for the asinine, passive-aggressive remarks I made. And for my hypocritical defensiveness, and my over-sensativity, and for rushing to play the victim.

Today was Shabbat for me, and I was dedicated to this day of rest and religious study, reading the Book of Matthew, when something I read reminded me of something in that article. So I went to re-read certain parts, but some of them were gone, so I sought to replace them, not realizing that some of them weren’t sourced in the body of the article. I’ve never contributed to this article unill I removed those tags the other day. I had never intended to contribute to it at all. Thank you for appreciating some of my edits. I hated “working” today, but I remembered Jesus telling the Pharisees that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath, and I felt that I was keeping the law by doing what I perceived as both fighting for truth and preserving knowledge. But I now see that I also caused trouble for you in the process.

No, you are incorrect regarding my knowledge of you; I usually make it a habit of thoroughly researching an editor before making even the most minor edits to their contributions. I had read your entire Talk page and User page before I had even removed those tags. Creepy, right? You’re preaching to the choir, bud, I think you’re awesome sauce. 😊 WikiEditorial101 (talk) 05:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

User refusing to get the point.

Unibond, after refusing to get the point on the God talk page, restored disputed content as "closed issue" without obtaining an ounce of agreemrnt on the talk page. Because he doesn't have the competence to provide a counterargument, he is probably going to accuse me of "edit-warring" How do you even deal with something like that? What should I do?ScepticismOfPopularisation (talk) 01:22, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Awarded to you for your tireless dedication to articles—from Jesus to Mesopotamian deities—concerning religions of the Middle East. User:WikiEditorial101 (talk) 03:44, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: Thank you so much and, once again, I apologize if I have offended you or if you have perceived my comments as hostile. I will try to make an effort to be more friendly in the future. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:59, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

You are most welcome, brother! You deserve it! May YHVH bless you! See you at the Feast (and of course I forgive you)! 💛 WikiEditorial101 (talk) 05:18, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

for your edit at Cinderella.

Coolabahapple (talk) 05:18, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Some other 'humor' that you may be able to copyedit...

Maybe not your area of expertise but the footnotes on this: Wikipedia:WikiBible might be worth some chuckles.

Of course if you want to add your own "research" results into other strands...

Thanks for copyediting the list of unusual articles. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 23:20, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

List of deities

I saw that you added List of deities to List of lists of lists recently. I wonder if you might care to comment on my proposal at Talk:List of deities#Split up? Pburka (talk) 03:19, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Would you want to help me?

Hello Katolophyromai, I am VenusFeuerFalle, maybe you remember me, I supported you by the "Satan" article. Once I edited the "jinn" article, trying to imrpove it, but I think I need help to make it a good article. I wanted you to ask, if you would mind to help me making it a good article. (I saw you once made an edit there, too. maybe you are interested)--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 18:40, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

@VenusFeuerFalle: I am willing to help you in ways that I can, but I am not really an expert on jinn in particular or Islam in general. Ironically, I actually know quite a bit more about the pre-Islamic Middle East than about the post-Islamic Middle East. I apologize for not responding sooner; I meant to respond as soon as I saw this, but I got caught up in something else and forgot about this and only just now remembered. --Katolophyromai (talk) 12:37, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

@VenusFeuerFalle: Well, I tried to help by adding information about precursors to jinn in pre-Islamic cultures and their influences on early beliefs about jinn, but my efforts to help seem to have gone horribly wrong. The whole issue has devolved into a long, nauseating content dispute, since another editor is vehemently opposed to nearly all the content I added and seems to have a very clear, set notion in his head about what a "real" jinn is supposed to be and seemingly fails to realize that we are supposed to be summarizing what people throughout history have believed about them. I have to be honest, I really hate all the arguing that working on Wikipedia so often requires. Sometimes it seems like I can never write anything at all, even something that seems perfectly innocuous, without someone else getting angry. Do not mistake me; I think I am generally very good at arguing and sometimes I have even managed to convince people, but I cannot say I enjoy it. It always makes me feel frustrated and upset with myself.

Sometimes I wonder why I subject myself to this, but then I remember how many people read Wikipedia every day, and all the articles I have written already. I think of all the harm that will undoubtedly come about if I do not do my part as an honest citizen of the world to help keep Wikipedia accurate, and it compels me to continue. Working on Wikipedia does eat so much of my time, though, that I really probably should use for more productive things. The problem is that I honestly really enjoy writing articles and having people read them, and I do not know of any other way to have this many people to read what I have written. I always worry about accidentally spreading inaccuracies, though, and, even though I always try to make sure everything I write is correct, sometimes I make mistakes. Those mistakes always bother me and gnaw at me, but I think my time here at Wikipedia has been and continues to be an excellent learning experience. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Katolophyromai: Thank you very much for your response, I did not thought it would be what fast and it is almost a month ago, for my request (I really apologize for that, since I had gone busy outside of Wikipedia and really forgot, how long I didn't logged in. I am really sorry, and I want to thank you, for your support, no matter if someone opposes it, I will look up for that to see, if there is something usefull, although it ended up, that someone started editwarring (this is often something natural on Wikipedia then it cames up to Islamic topic, I remember I also had to finish such a "fight" on a wikipedia on another language. I am pretty sure, someone edited again "Harut and Marut" to claim, the Stroy about them would have no Islamic origin). Ok, I thought the "jinn" could also be some of your strenghts especially because of your knowledge about ancient mesopotamia, but it seems, most Wikipedians are not do not appreciate much about "pre-Islamic" jinn notions. However I want to thank you, for your response and your help.--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 20:34, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Although I would agree, that mentioning some of Robert Leblings Jinn-accounts would fit better to the "pre-Islamic"-section, and I would agree with you, that the image is indeed depicted a for-runenr of later Islamic Jinn (for example the Turkish-Wiki uses it, in their "Jinn-article" (called "Cin") but it may be a linguistical reason, since Turks refer to demons, genii and similar creatures as "Cin".)

Although it didn't go how it was intended, I guess Wikipedia benefits from a direct link between Old testamental Mesopotamia Demons and the Islamic Jinn, by creating a comparation section between Mesopotamia and the later Jinn. Only thing that bugs me is, that the Comparative section still expans, while the Main-section are still comparatively small. But I guess, the benefits are more than this little "damage". So thank you.--VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

June 2018

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Jinn. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 17:12, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Ninurta

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Ninurta you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Farang Rak Tham -- Farang Rak Tham (talk) 08:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Mary Magdalene

The article Mary Magdalene you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Mary Magdalene for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Display name 99 -- Display name 99 (talk) 20:21, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

ANI Notice

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. :bloodofox: (talk) 07:43, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Burney Relief edit

Anzû shown here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anz%C3%BB#/media/File:Relief_Im-dugud_Louvre_AO2783.jpg is very relevant to the Burney Relief, as it is example of a Sumerian deity standing on twin lions with wings. That is the very discussion itself, since there is a strong focus on similar Sumerian deities to the relief, as to better understand it. The deity's name links the page for a source (the image is also on wiki), and it is self evident that there are is another deity with wings standing on twin lions. You could simply find a better location for it, or reword it a bit. It would be too astounding to think it wasn't relevant. My other edit can be left undone, as it's not really needed. NC360 (talk) 22:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I just updated it myself, with the ref NC360 (talk) 15:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC) Updated again without making a comparison between the Anzû and Burney Relief NC360 (talk) 18:35, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 5

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Saint Nicholas, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Great Schism (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:06, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Religion

The friend is studying the religion of Cambodia. Buddhism is a belief system at the level of texts, but not at the level of the village, which is where 80% of Cambodians live. For village people, practice is more significant than belief, and takes in things that the Buddhist texts never raise, such as the role of shamans in contacting gods and spirits (the monks say they don't exist). This was also true of European religion up until the modern age (villagers had witches, the equivalent of Cambodian shamans, to consult on matters where priests were not useful).

I write on biblical texts here on WIki, but my interest is literary, not religious.PiCo (talk) 23:41, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Ninurta

The article Ninurta you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Ninurta for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Farang Rak Tham -- Farang Rak Tham (talk) 13:21, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for July 12

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Ninurta, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Bau (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:36, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Nuska

The Nuska article needs help, and I think you’re the man for the job. WikiEditorial101 (talk) 09:38, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

@WikiEditorial101: Thank you very much for the notification. My ultimate plan for the Mesopotamian deities is to bring all the articles about major deities to Good Article status so that it can become a Good Topic. That goal is still probably a long way off, but I have been making advancements towards it. Nuska, however, probably will not be on my to-do list for quite a while and I have several articles I have already started on as well as numerous others I plan to work on. Meanwhile, I am going to be very busy both today and tomorrow and will probably not have much time to edit, so I apologize in advance for any possible delays in responsiveness that may occur. --Katolophyromai (talk) 11:33, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

May be of interest

Hello again Katolophyromai. I noticed your user page change and its edit summary. This reminded me of this page, which you may perhaps appreciate. I'll also take this opportunity to say that I think you're a valuable contributor. Keep up the good work, —PaleoNeonate – 05:57, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Same here. I've just been through your recent contributions, and assume your user-page removals were triggered (at least partly) by seemingly knee-jerk responses in this talk-page discussion. I think anyone who has actually checked your contributions would be very hard-pressed to justify such an accusation. Of course, what you say (or don't say) on your talk-page is entirely up to you; I for one found your honest disclosures rather refreshing, expecially because your editing respects the principles of balance and overall neutrality. I'm sure your disclosures raise a minority of hackles. But so what? Besides, article talk pages are for discussion of edits, not editors. Haploidavey (talk) 10:30, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

What they said. We all have biases, so we all need to be careful. Of course the best way to be careful is with the meticulous use of reliable sources, which you do very well. Paul August ☎ 11:08, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Marcellina (gnostic)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Marcellina (gnostic) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Iazyges -- Iazyges (talk) 07:21, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Marcellina (gnostic)

The article Marcellina (gnostic) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Marcellina (gnostic) for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Iazyges -- Iazyges (talk) 08:21, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments on the Plato talk page

Thank you for putting me right on the talk page of the article on Plato - it is good to have some knowledgeable about ancient history who can put me right on these things. Vorbee (talk) 08:06, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Kratos (mythology)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Kratos (mythology) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of JDC808 -- JDC808 (talk) 04:00, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Santa Muerte

Hi! I know you are deeply interested in religion, and I was thinking of getting Santa Muerte to GA status; would you be willing to review the article once it is ready?--MagicatthemovieS MagicatthemovieS (talk) 04:01, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@MagicatthemovieS: I would be willing to review it. Just let me know when it is ready. In the meantime, I noticed your edit at Killing Jesus, which I have recently nominated for "Good Article" status. Would you perhaps be willing to review that article? It is difficult to find reviewers for GA nominations and there is always a massive backlog. It is a relatively short article, with it being only 32,996 bytes in length, and probably will not take very long to review. I had fun writing it; the book the article is about is an objectively ridiculous one that I happened to have purchased several years ago at a time when I knew nothing whatsoever about the author except that he was famous and that some people I knew had talked about how his books were supposedly amazing. Its main thesis is essentially that Jesus was some kind of prototypical "Tea Party supporter" who was executed for advocating less government and lower taxes. Naturally, it was a massive commercial success, but was almost invariably panned by critics and scholars as poorly-written and poorly-researched. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:54, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I have never reviewed an article before and frankly I'm worried I might botch the task =( --MagicatthemovieS

Hellenized

Will you consider self-reverting Hellenized? It's a label that shouldn't be used in the lede because Lucian being Hellenized is always qualified in reliable sources, as it should be. Readers not reading beyond the first line is not a good reason to add a complex label to the lede, knowing full well it will bias readers who don't read the qualifications of its use. Seraphim System ^(talk) 20:54, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Strikethrough: Sorry, I don't think you did this intentionally, but it seems that for Lucian whose complex identity is discussed at length by multiple RS that it should be obvious that this type of labelling is inappropriate. I've seen sources call him a "2nd century satirist" so would removing Syrian also resolve the issue? It should be discussed in the article anyway. Seraphim System ^(talk) 20:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@Seraphim System: What is wrong with "Hellenized"? I do not see any way in which it is "inappropriate"; Lucian's writings are all exclusively written in Greek, he lived in Athens during the period when he was writing most of his famous works, and his works are situated within a Greek literary and cultural environment. The description seems entirely apt. As for calling him a "Syrian," I do not see what is wrong with that either, because he was, by his own account, born in Samosata in Syria to a Syrian family and was a native speaker of a "barbarian tongue" (likely Syriac).

I apologize for my delay in responding to this, but I was in the middle of editing the article Origen when I received this message, so I tried to finish my edit before coming here to respond, but then you reverted me there and I kept trying to edit the page, but I kept getting caught in edit conflicts with you and I was unable to save my edit until you were finished. --Katolophyromai (talk) 21:40, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Based on reliable sources, making a statement about Lucian's self-identity is complex, despite his writing in Greek. Most average readers won't know what Hellenistic means, so at worst it's misleading. In reliable sources, there is more speculation then certainty about describing certain individual people as "Hellenized Syrians" just because they wrote in Greek. Lucian is one of those people. A number of writers from this period, including Lucian, are considered polemical - they were educated in Greek philosophy, but had not adopted Greek religion, and they still had mixed influences from other cultures. (For example Paul may be described as a "Hellenistic Jew" but it doesn't follow that he had more "affinity with Greece" just because his writings are in Greek. Paul's identity is so complex that entire books have been written about it. That is generally not the type of thing that is ideal for the first sentence of the lede). If you want me to cite multiple sources that discuss this we can continue this on the article talk page. I will pull out some quotes to discuss. Seraphim System ^(talk) 21:57, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@Seraphim System: I never said Lucian was not influenced by non-Greek cultures. "Hellenized" just means he was part of Greek culture; it does not mean he had completely adopted all aspects of Greek culture and utterly rejected all aspects of his own culture. Furthermore, saying that a word should not be used to describe someone because people might not know what the word means is not a good argument, in my view, for why the word should not be used. If they do not know what it means, they can look it up. We even have an article about Hellenization that we could link to. I am still not seeing a good reason to avoid describing him as "Hellenized," unless you have multiple reliable sources specifically arguing that he was not. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:13, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

It actually is a good reason to avoid it in the first sentence of the lede. The lede should not use difficult to understand academic terminology. Hellenized does not "just mean he was part of Greek culture" — the first sentence of the Oxford Classical Dictionary says The relation between the two modern words is controversial: should the longer word (Hellenization) be avoided because of its suggestion of cultural imperialism? - Generally, academic terms that are noted for being controversial by very strong mainstream sources aren't a good choice for the lede's first sentence. Seraphim System ^(talk) 22:29, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@Seraphim System: We should not eliminate academic words from our articles just because people might not understand them; if a person is unfamiliar with the word, it is easy for him or her to click on a wikilink to another article giving the definition of the word. Even if we do not have an article on the subject, a person can easily look the word up in a dictionary or on Google. We are writing an encyclopedia, not a children's book. Merriam-Webster defines "Hellenize" as "to become Greek or Hellenistic in form or culture." Dictionary.com defines the word "Hellenize" as "to make Greek in character." By either of these definitions, Lucian would seem to me to be "Hellenized," since his writings are clearly written in Greek, in a Greek style, about primarily Greek subject matter, for a Greek audience. The source yourself added to the article earlier, the book Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome by Caroline Vout, states on page 16: "Lucian is part of the 'Second Sophistic', a 'movement' renowned for, and defined by, its obsession with Greek heritage."

Now, since you have quoted such a very short snippet of the entry from the Oxford Classical Dictionary and I do not have access to that book, it is hard for me to tell what the source is saying, but it seems to me to be questioning the political correctness of using the word "Hellenization" versus another word, which is unclear from the sentence you have quoted, but which I am guessing is probably either "Hellenistic" or "Hellenism." The passage is certainly not talking about whether or not any of those words can be accurately applied to Lucian. It seems to me that you just do not like the word because it suggests cultural imperialism. I would be willing to remove the word "Hellenized" if you could show at least one reliable source that explicitly argues that Lucian was not Hellenized. I would also be willing to replace it with a better word if you can provide one that is more accurate. I would be fine, for instance, with swapping "Hellenized Syrian" for "Hellenistic Syrian," "Greco-Syrian," or another more suitable term you might propose. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with you and more importantly I don't see any clear sources or discussion in the article supporting what you are saying. I also don't agree that Vout supports inclusion, Vout clearly calls it into question as uncertain. Something that sources consider uncertain or needing qualification should not be stated in wikivoice in the first sentence of the lede, it's a violation of neutrality especially since the argument to revert it was "most people will not read past the first sentence". Now you are arguing they can look it up if they want to know more. Most likely it will just bias the readers into thinking he was Greek, because they will not understand the qualification most scholars make when talking about Lucian in particular that it was a "cultural Greek" - and because there are multiple definitions of Hellenistic. Something is not adding up here. Where in the article is this sourced anyway? The content in the article needs to be sourced, not it's removal.Seraphim System ^(talk) 23:50, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@Seraphim System: "Hellenized" does not mean "Greek"; it refers (as both of the definitions I quote above support) to a non-Greek person who has adopted aspects of Greek culture or character (i.e. "become Greek or Hellenistic in form or culture"). We should not write our articles under the automatic assumption that people will misinterpret our words to mean something that they do not. If we do that, then why do we even write at all, since, even if we write something that is accurate, people will assume it to mean something inaccurate? Yes, I did say that most people will probably not read past the first sentence; I never said people cannot read past the first sentence and I certainly never said that they cannot look up words they do not understand.

All the information that I mention above is present in the article. Lucian and Greek culture are discussed throughout the article, but particularly in the last two paragraphs of the "Life" section, which talk about Lucian studying classical literature and rhetoric in Ionia, lecturing on philosophy across the classical world, and writing his most famous works exclusively in Greek while living in Athens. There is also the "Views" section, which talks about Lucian's relationship with different Greek philosophical schools. You still have not provided any sources for your assertion that it is uncertain whether Lucian was Hellenized. You say that "Vout clearly calls it into question as uncertain." Where? Where does she argue that Lucian was not Hellenized? If she does, I will be willing to remove the word, but I do not see anywhere where she does. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:56, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I checked around and we don't have an article about Hellenized Syrians, which I think we should. I'll try to draft something up so we can at least link to something relevant, instead of the broad Hellenistic article. The term Hellenistic is imprecise and in fact, Hellenistic Syrians is rather a different topic from Hellenistic art in Bactria, or Hellenization in the age of Alexander, etc. I object to careless repetition of difficult language like this, which is damaging, and then justifying it by arguing that removing it would be dumbing down the encyclopedic content. This isn't a term that can be used without qualification. That's what the Oxford Dictionary is driving at. I hope that makes sense. Seraphim System ^(talk) 00:37, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

No. It does not make sense. I am sorry, but I still do not see any way in which this can be classified as "careless repetition of difficult language" or how it is in any way "damaging" to the encyclopedia. Quite frankly, I am very confused regarding why you are objecting to the term. As best as I can tell, the only objection you have against the word is that you do not like it because you feel it implies imperialism, since the only source you have provided is the quote from the Oxford Classical Dictionary asking a question about whether the word implies imperialism. You keep saying that its application to Lucian is contested in reliable sources, but you have yet to provide a source that actually contests it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:56, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Whoa, let me stop you there, I never said I object to the word because I feel it implies imperialism, stop putting words in my mouth. Lucian's ethnicity - his Syrianess even more than his being Hellenized, is probably the most disputed point in scholarship about him. Something that requires qualification and lengthy explanation - which the article content itself needs to be expanded to include at present - should not be in the first sentence of the lede, and many sources choose to omit it referring to him as a "second century satirist" instead. Especially because Wikipedia is read by laypeople who are not expected to know what Hellenistic means. If this does not make sense, I don't think further discussion is likely to be helpful. The main issue as I see it is that you reverted because "most people don't read past the first sentence" - I didn't revert immediately, but "most people don't read past the first sentence" isn't a good reason to include something in the first sentence of the lede.Seraphim System ^(talk) 03:14, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Just so we're clear, Hellenistic (which Lucian wasn't) and Hellenized (which he was) aren't the same thing at all. Johnbod (talk) 03:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

@Seraphim System: @Johnbod: I have gone ahead and removed the word "Hellenized" from the first sentence of the article. I still do not see what the problem is, because, as far as I am concerned, Lucian was clearly Hellenized, but I just do not like arguing and this is not important enough to me to stay up late arguing over. After all, it says in the next sentence: "Although his native language was probably Syriac, all of his extant works are written entirely in ancient Greek (mostly in the Atticized dialect popular during the Second Sophistic)." I am sure most readers will not be bothered to read at least the first two sentences. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:30, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I agree with both of you that he was probably Hellenized, but Hellenization was a widespread phenomenon wasn't the same everywhere - Western Anatolia may have already been more culturally "Greek" when they adopted the language, as the cultural ties in that region may pre-date the concept of Greekness ... that said in far away places like Syria where cultures were more mixed it needs some explanation - the Hellenization article isn't in good shape, which may be why it wasn't linked, and which is why I opted for removal. I would support restoring Hellenized to the lede once we have a solid article to link to, so at least readers who want to find out more can. Seraphim System ^(talk) 03:40, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Syria had been under Greek-speaking rule for nearly 500 years when Lucian was born, so I don't really see the issue, but whatever. Johnbod (talk) 13:20, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the best way to proceed is to improve the main article and then add the link back in, which I am working on right now. For example this is currently in the main Hellenization article, added by a now blocked sockpuppet [1] : "Hellenization did not necessarily involve assimilation of non-Greek ethnic groups since Hellenistic Greeks in regions such as Asia Minor were conscious of their ancestral lineages" which is ironic since the source The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity is discussing origin myths of certain cities and Lucian is explicitly noted as a critic of xenophobia and views about the "evils of mixed stock": "It is this peerless Dionysus, who is half human; in fact, on his mother's side he is not even Greek, but the grandson of a Syrophoenecian" - It's been in the article for 10 years. I think this is a damaging misrepresentation, but Katolophyromai's work is stellar so I just want to be clear that when I said it was damaging that wasn't a comment about their editing.Seraphim System ^(talk) 14:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Ninurta

On 31 July 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Ninurta, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Ninurta, the Mesopotamian god of hunting, is believed by many scholars to be the source of the biblical figure Nimrod? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ninurta. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Ninurta), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

TFL notification

Hi, Katolophyromai. I'm just posting to let you know that List of Mesopotamian deities – a list that you have been heavily involved with – has been chosen to appear on the Main Page as Today's featured list for August 24. The TFL blurb can be seen here. If you have any thoughts on the selection, please post them on my talk page or at TFL talk. Regards, Giants2008 (Talk) 21:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Giants2008: Thank you very much for the heads up. I am a little surprised that List of Mesopotamian deities is becoming a TFL so soon after becoming a Featured List, since it only just became a Featured List back in May. Would you mind telling me where the TFL appears on the main page? I have scoured the main page and I cannot find where it appears. --Katolophyromai (talk) 01:06, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

TFL only appears on the Main Page on Mondays and Fridays, so if you look at the main page on a different day it won't be there. The main page is coded so that TFL only appears on the days it is scheduled to run. It runs above the featured picture of the day and below the Did you know and On this day sections; this is a good example of how it appears. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:32, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

@Giants2008: Thank you very much for clearing that up. I was really wondering where it appeared. The fact that they only appear on Mondays and Fridays makes sense, since there are fewer Featured Lists than Featured Articles. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:52, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Marcellina (gnostic)

On 6 August 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Marcellina (gnostic), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that followers of the second-century Carpocratian Christian leader Marcellina venerated Greek philosophers alongside Jesus? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Marcellina (gnostic). You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Marcellina (gnostic)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Regarding articles on deities

Hello, Katolophyromai. I've noticed some issues with a variety of articles on the top of classical myth that I think you might be interested in discussing. For one, a lot of our articles on non-Germanic subjects tend be stuck in the synchronic, as opposed to the diachronic. What I mean by this is that they seem to synthesize a particular time and place, rather than reflect how entities have developed over time. For example, the article on Hera spends a lot of time discussing the entity at one particular time in her history, even introducing her as 'godess of x and x and x'. However, we know that this does not appear to have always been the case with Hera, particularly in her early history.

Additionally, a lot of these classical articles read like synthesized essays. They don't go into the history of attestations, crucial for any serious study on these topics. In turn, what we have on Wikipedia is all too often a step away from Bulfinch's victorian approach, in my opinion.

I think it would help to put together a guide or standard or what have you on how to write articles on deities from myth. As you know from writing so many of these article, ultimately they can only be handled a few different ways. What do you think? :bloodofox: (talk) 21:09, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Creatonists vs aggressive mainstream

What's your take on this?--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 08:01, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Bbb23 (talk) 21:54, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I'll post this here as it's directly related: I actually copied all the relevant information from the Kur article into the ancient Mesopotamian underworld article from the beginning. I would just like to note that per WP:A and WP:BLAR: it's important to attribute where the material comes from if it was borrowed. This can be done by adding a {{Merged-from}} tag on the talk page, or by a detailed edit summary (it can also be a null edit). Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 02:22, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Very thoughtful attitude PaleoNeonate, this was appreciated. Katolophyromai I've gave a second look in the merged article, and changed my mind. The article merged by you is actually functional (though there is significant more to put in there... but well...). If I could I'd written this abdication in that notification, but the guys over there were in extreme rush to end the subject (whatever was their fear). Still I usually don't approve mergers (including this); yet the truth is, that is what Wikipedia has been made by these days. Stay cool; cheers. Smilingalien (talk) 04:01, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Since the administrator's incidents noticeboard is for timely interventions about behavioral or disruption problems and that this was considered a content dispute, no immediate administrator action was necessary. —PaleoNeonate – 04:19, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh adding: I did not close the discussion (and would normally not be expected to as one of its participants), another experienced editor did. —PaleoNeonate – 04:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: I realized that after I saved my edit. I assumed you were the one who closed the discussion because your comment was the one at the very bottom, but, after my edit was already saved, I realized it was actually John from Idegon who closed it. I apologize for the confusion. Also, thanks for adding the "merged from" templates at Talk:Ancient Mesopotamian underworld. I normally mention something in my edit summary when I copy material from another article, but apparently, in this case, I did not. I may have not bothered to attribute because I was the one who originally wrote the material that I copied over from the Kur article to begin with, although I actually originally wrote it for the article Hell, as my edit summary to the article Kur from 23 October 2017 clearly states. I should also note that I did not, in fact, copy any material from the article Irkalla, because that article did not have any adequately cited material for me to copy. I did, however, copy some of the descriptions of deities from the Featured List I wrote List of Mesopotamian deities, so an attribution template could be added for that.

@Smilingalien: The ancient Mesopotamian underworld article is still a work in progress and I have really only just started working on it. Obviously, there is a lot that is still missing and a lot of the stuff I have already added still needs revision. I kind of threw the beginning of the article together back in June and then mostly forgot about it while I went on to work on other articles. It is never fun being dragged to ANI for doing something that was not even wrong, but I think that this incident, as unpleasant as it has been for me, has actually had a net positive impact because it has reminded me about the article and of the fact that I still need to finish it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:40, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Cool, I think that the merge templates are still good practice, but are easy to forget and can be added later anyway like was done now. Smilingalien: as articles are not one's property, other than the possibility to restore the articles (reverting the redirects) and start formal merge discussions, you can of course still participate improving the new article. —PaleoNeonate – 07:29, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Kur merge

Hi Katolophyromai. Looking at the previous content of Kur, I see some assertions there seemingly not (yet?) reflected in Ancient Mesopotamian underworld. Specifically:

• From the lede:

"In Sumerian religion, kur is normally used as a name for the Underworld, Irkalla, which is often personified as the first dragon, the Sumerian equivalent of the Babylonian Tiamat. The same word was often used to refer to the Zagros Mountains to the east of Sumer. Additionally, the word could also mean "foreign land". The cuneiform for kur was written ideographically with the cuneiform sign 𒆳, a pictograph of a mountain."

• The section "As the name of the first dragon":

In later Babylonian religion, kur is possibly an Anunnaki, brother of Ereshkigal, Inanna, Enki, and Enlil. In the Enûma Eliš and in Akkadian tablets from the first millennium BC, kur is part of the retinue of Tiamat, and seems to be a snakelike dragon. In one story, the slaying of the great serpent kur results in the flooding of the earth.

A cylinder seal from the first millennium BC shows a winged, fire-spitting dragon with a nude woman between its wings pulling the chariot of the god who has subdued it. Another depicts a god riding a dragon. A third seal depicts a goddess riding on the back of a dragon.

References

Note, I have no opinion as to whether any of the above belongs anywhere on Wikipedia.

Paul August ☎ 13:06, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@Paul August: I have actually been looking around for more information about the idea of Kur as some kind of dragon-like figure and I just found this essay by renowned Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen in which, as part of a review of Samuel Noah Kramer's Sumerian Mythology (the only book in which I have been able to find that interpretation of Kur and to which all of the citations above refer), he completely refutes and rejects Kramer's interpretation of the Kur as a personal entity. Seeing as I have been unable to find more recent sources arguing for the interpretation, I think it is safe to assume that the interpretation of Kur as a personal entity was simply a mistake on Kramer's part, the result of his sometimes overeager interpretation techniques. Kramer was indisputably a great scholar, but even he sometimes made mistakes. It certainly did not help that, when it came to Sumerian mythology, he was a pioneer in a new field that no one had really written about before. --Katolophyromai (talk) 16:15, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I have added a footnote explaining Kramer's dragon interpretation and Thorkild Jacobsen's refutation of it to the article ancient Mesopotamian underworld with this edit. --Katolophyromai (talk) 16:35, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Given Jacobsen's essay, and the lack of any corroborating sources, I agree with your conclusions above. However a mention of this somewhere (perhaps in a note?) might be warranted. Paul August ☎ 16:45, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@Paul August: You seem to have missed my comment directly above yours; I already have added a footnote to the article explaining this. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:05, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Ah yes. Thanks. Paul August ☎ 17:29, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The Great God Pan

Instead of the Santa Muerte article, I fixed the article for The Great God Pan, a novella about paganism. As you are interested in the subject, I was wondering if you would like to review it for GA?MagicatthemovieS (talk) 01:25, 12 August 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: I would be more than happy to review that article for you. Much of my work here on Wikipedia has dealt with Greek mythology and I have actually given much thought to fixing up the article Pan (god), which I have contributed to on several occasions. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:55, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much! MagicatthemovieS (talk) 02:59, 12 August 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

Your GA nomination of Kratos (mythology)

The article Kratos (mythology) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Kratos (mythology) for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of JDC808 -- JDC808 (talk) 05:08, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Brownie (folklore)

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Brownie (folklore) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of J Milburn -- J Milburn (talk) 12:21, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Comments

Did you see my comments on the talk page? Also, do you think the article now properly explains the controversy surrounding the book 's cover?MagicatthemovieS (talk) 23:57, 13 August 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

Encyclopædia Britannica

Hello, Katolophyromia. I noticed your recent comments regarding use of Encyclopædia Britannica, and I'd like to echo them. I've found non-specialist tertiary sources are often surprisingly poor on the topic of myth, even for Norse myth topics. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:13, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Bloodofox: I think the biggest problem with Encyclopedia Britannica is that the quality of their articles tends to vary drastically (which, incidentally, is also the most significant problem with Wikipedia). Some articles are really good, but others are frankly terrible. I have found that the quality of the article usually greatly depends on who the author is. Sometimes Encyclopedia Britannica has articles written by renowned scholars who specialize in the subject that the article is about; those articles are usually excellent and I think they can legitimately be cited as reliable sources on Wikipedia. One example of this is their surprisingly extensive article "Origen," written by Henry Chadwick, a leading historian of early Christianity. Other articles, however, are merely credited to "Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica." The quality of these articles is often highly variable. For instance, the articles "Ishtar" and "Anu" are basically adequate, albeit extremely brief. The information given is accurate and the articles are more-or-less decent summaries of the deities in question, though they are hardly comprehensive and there is a lot of significant information that is missing.

The article "Ninurta," on the other hand, is utterly and completely garbage; the entire article is composed of speculation that the Anzû, a monstrous bird famously slain by Ninurta, is actually an older form of the god himself (a claim which I have not yet found a shred of scholarly support for in all my reading on the subject), while omitting all information whatsoever about the actual god himself. They do not mention that he was originally associated with farming and agriculture, but, in later times became associated with warfare as Mesopotamia grew more urbanized and militarized. They do not mention his importance to the Assyrians, his temple at Kalhu, or his appearances in numerous important literary works such as the Lugal-e or even, ironically, the Anzû myth itself, apart from their claim that the Anzû is Ninurta. They also introduce him as a "Sumerian deity," but it would be far more accurate to use the more general term "Mesopotamian," since he was also worshipped by the (non-Sumerian) Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. In fact, he was more important to the Assyrians than he ever was to most Sumerians. I do not think I could have written a worse article about Ninurta if I tried. I do not think these sorts of articles can be counted as reliable sources by any measure. --Katolophyromai (talk) 23:15, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I've even found fringe material from a multiple sockpuppeteer in a Britannica article. Doug Weller talk 18:35, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Pan

I left you two messages on the talk page.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 17:19, 18 August 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: I know. I have already responded to one of them and will respond to the other shortly. Please be patient. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:20, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Jaynes

A few articles you might wish to check. Bicameralism (psychology), Mythopoeic thought, The Rage of Achilles, Terence Hawkins. What a nutty concept. Doug Weller talk 18:35, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Biblical criticism FAC

I have no complaints! You didn't revert me! Ha ha! I like your banner! Actually, I have nothing but gratitude. I am here to ask what may be a stupid question--but that I am going to ask anyway. :-) I was wondering if it would be okay if we collapsed our discussion at the Biblical criticism FAC. The other two discussions are collapsed, and I thought it might look like the discussion was ongoing if we didn't. Since this is my first FAC experience, I don't really know what's copacetic though, so I wanted to ask. The article needs more reviewers to show up. I was just told yesterday, this could take months! I am going to go off and do other things I think--sitting and waiting is driving me nuts! Anyway--thank you again! And let me know what you think is the best thing to do. That's what we'll do. Jenhawk777 18:40, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I put up that banner because I frequently get people leaving me angry messages, insisting that I reverted them for personal judgmental reasons. It is a positively absurd notion; I cannot revert someone on account of a personal distaste for them if I do not even know them. Nonetheless, they complain anyways and usually their complaints are sprinkled with a nice variety of crude insults. In any case, you are welcome to collapse our discussion if you see fit to do that. I did notice there was an uncited statement about Albert Schweitzer that I had overlooked earlier, so I added a citation to support it. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:57, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I understand completely--that was actually my original experience on Wikipedia--my very first article--I ran into all kinds of personal attack. But I learned from it, I persevered, got some support from some wonderful people, finished that blinkin' article and moved on to better things. You have my support--if that counts for anything! :-) I have not been on Wikipedia two years yet, and this is my first FAC, so I do not know most protocol about most things here still. You're saying it's alright for me to collapse a review from you? That seems decidedly odd to me!! Well, I won't, until I check out the Schweitzer reference, and I'm sure you are good with it. I'm thinking maybe we should just leave it until you feel you have gone through the article sufficiently you feel confident in it. I have no desire to push you. I just found out today that a review of a complex article like this one can take months!!! I had no idea! So- I am at least learning a lot! Jenhawk777 03:16, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Okay, went and saw your addition to Schweitzer, and I want to tell you, I will remove it for much the same reason I removed the stuff on the Jesus Seminar. The length and complexity of the many subjects here means that only the highlights can be hit, and details have to be kept to a minimum. Schweitzer's one main contribution deserves space, but what you have here is not only too much detail, it is unexplained detail, will be controversial and need further support, and worst of all, it claims a position. That can't stay in, I'm sorry. I will revert and source the original statement. I don't know how the reference got left out. Thank you for calling my attention to that. Jenhawk777 03:27, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I do not see how it is "too much detail"; it is just one sentence and Albert Schweitzer is arguably the most important scholar in the history of research on the historical Jesus. I do not see how it "claims a position" either; it is widely agreed that Schweitzer's book The Quest for the Historical Jesus (1906) brought an end to the so-called "first quest for the historical Jesus" by showing that most scholars writing "lives of Jesus" were just painting self-portraits; socialists portrayed Jesus as a socialist, anarchists as an anarchist, anti-Semites as an anti-Semite, progressive reformers as a progressive reformer, etc. After providing extensive rebuttals to each of these representations, Schweitzer argued that the historical Jesus is best viewed as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, a view which has generally, albeit not universally, been the predominate view of the historical Jesus among scholars ever since. (Of course, the irony is that the source I cited, Casey, argues that, while the traditional view is correct that Schweitzer's book should have brought an end to the first quest, it is wrong because it did not really bring an end to it entirely. Casey contends that Schweitzer's book was only the "end" of the "lives of Jesus" movement if one ignores the appalling New Testament scholarship of Nazi-era Germany, in which Jesus was made out as an Aryan anti-Semitic revolutionary and supporter of the Third Reich.) Nonetheless, I have refrained from restoring my addition. --Katolophyromai (talk) 11:55, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Even Schweitzer himself said that if there had been no Reimarus, there would have been no historical Jesus research, so the idea that Schweitzer is most important is debatable. It is too much detail, not because of its length, but because of its content. You have just taken a paragraph to explain it here--and we both know what you're talking about. Someone without that background would be clueless. They wouldn't know about the 'lives of Jesus' and what other people had written, and without that information the sentence is incomprehensible. It would have to be included in order to explain something that is otherwise confusing. This entire article has been an exercise in what not to say as much as what to say. I understand the frustration of wanting to include more. I had to cut out and cut out and cut out --and some of it really hurt! But it's Schweitzer's contribution to biblical criticism itself that had to be included--and nothing more. That decision had to be made about everything. Thank you for understanding. Jenhawk777 15:56, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: Regarding Schweitzer's importance, I very deliberately used the word "arguably." Reimarus, of course, is important too, but, with nearly a full paragraph devoted to him, I think he is well enough covered. I would have given Schweitzer more than two sentences, but, then again, he receives more attention in the article Historical Jesus, which is probably a more fitting article for that coverage. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Schweitzer was no doubt the more brilliant thinker--but Reimarus was first--and those that begin new things get the big mention. Schweitzer does deserve more, but there are so many people I had to cut out completely--well--this history section was especially problematic in an extremely difficult article. That entire paragraph, (that Schweitzer ends), is there because Gerda Arendt said more explanation was needed, that I couldn't just list people, which is what I had done. To me the space would be better suited to a better discussion of Schweitzer alone without the others who are much less consequential. But there you have it--please one person, and displease another. Jenhawk777 21:48, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Brownie (folklore)

The article Brownie (folklore) you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Brownie (folklore) for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of J Milburn -- J Milburn (talk) 18:22, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

"The Cattle ..." moved to "Cattle ..."

May I, please, ask for an easy explanation of your move? I am a native German speaker, and my perception of the situation would prefer the former formulation, because I do not perceive any isolated cows, even when one or a few of them were slaughtered. To me it is the unique herd of cows, bulls, and oxen, owned as a well defined, single entity of and in numinous quality by Helios. Even their concrete numbers, associated by the Diophantine enigma, do not provide an individual existence as simply cattle for them. Please, do not feel bothered by me asking for your explanations. Purgy (talk) 08:00, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

@Purgy Purgatorio: The rules for whether or not to include the definite article in the title of an article are different from the ordinary grammar rules of when and where to use the definite article in everyday speech. I based my move on this policy here, which states, "...the default rule is to exclude them [i.e. the definite or indefinite article] unless certain specific conditions are met, usually where they are integral to the article subject's name." Thus, we have articles such as The Old Man and the Sea, The Washington Post, The Beatles, The Hague, because, in all those cases, the title of the article is a specific name in which the definite article is an integral part of the name that is included deliberately for stylistic reasons. The article cattle of Helios, however, should not contain a definitive article, because it is not a name or title in which the "the" is integral. Even though we use the definitive article when we are speaking about the cattle of Helios, we do not include it in the title of the encyclopedia article about the cattle of Helios. --Katolophyromai (talk) 12:21, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Kratos (mythology)

On 31 August 2018, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Kratos (mythology), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the creators of the video game franchise God of War named their main character Kratos without knowing that an actual god by that name appears in the Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Kratos (mythology). You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Kratos (mythology)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:03, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 1

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Methuselah

I just nominated Methuselah for GA; would you like to review it? It's (inevitably) very short.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 03:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

Satyr

Katolophyromai, you might want to mention the Satyricon, the first novel, in the Satyr article as its title references the obscene nature of satyrs. Also, did you see the message I left above this one?MagicatthemovieS (talk) 17:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: Yes. I saw it; I just had not responded yet. I may be willing to review that article for you, but my time may be somewhat limited, so you may need to be patient. As for the Satyricon, the reason why I have not added anything about it yet is because the actual contents of the book do not have much to do with satyrs. Also, I should note that the Satyricon is not, in fact, the first novel, since it is certainly predated by a number of other lengthy works of prose fiction, including Aristides of Miletus's Milesian Tale from the second century BC, which is completely lost except for a few references by other authors, and the Ninus Romance from the first century BC, which survives only in a few fragments. The Satyricon may also be predated by Antonius Diogenes's Wonders Beyond the Thule, which is of uncertain date and survives only in a Byzantine-era summary by Photios I of Constantinople, as well as possibly Chariton's Chaireas and Kallirhoe, which survives in its entirety and has been dated by some to the first century BC. The Satyricon, therefore, is not the earliest novel, nor even the earliest novel of which portions have survived. It is, however, far more famous than any of those other works, probably mostly because it was written in Latin; whereas those other novels were all originally written in Greek, which far fewer people in western Europe during the Early Modern Era could understand. --Katolophyromai (talk) 18:31, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Methuselah

Do you think that the article is OK?MagicatthemovieS (talk) 18:15, 9 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

Time frame

Do you have a time frame for when you are planning to review my article? I'm sure your intentions are noble, but I feel as if you are rudely ignoring my messages.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 01:31, 10 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: I truly apologize if my lack of response comes across as rude. I am not ignoring you and I am not trying to be rude. I did tell you that I may not have much time to review the article. I took it on because I know how hard it is to find a reviewer and I wanted to help you, since you have always been so kind to me in the past. I will try to post some comments on the review page by tomorrow evening (on United States Eastern Standard Time, since that is the time zone I live in). I will probably not have time to post them tonight, however. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:17, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@Katolophyromai: Thank-you so much.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 02:44, 10 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: You are welcome. I apologize once again for the delay. I really should have found time to post comments on the review page this weekend, since I have more time on weekends than weekdays, but I was caught up in other things and it kind of got pushed to the back of my to-do list. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:47, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@MagicatthemovieS: That's understandable. After Methuselah's article is fixed up, is there another biblical or classic literature article you might like to collaborate on? I feel that Wikipedia is lacking in biblical and literary GAs.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 02:57, 10 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: I would say that, in general, the vast majority of Wikipedia articles in any subject area that ought to be GAs are, unfortunately, nowhere close. This problem, however, is especially prominent in the areas of ancient history, religion, literature, and mythology. Not many people seem to recognize the importance or relevance of those subjects, so few people study them and even fewer are willing to put the time in to improve Wikipedia's coverage of them. (Is it no wonder that we have a 161,533-byte Featured Article about Scarlett Johansson, yet our article God is an only 83,430-byte mess that is missing tons of important information and littered with statements that are uncited and/or irrelevant?) I see it as our civic duty as editors to try to remedy this situation. I am currently working on the article satyr, as you have already noticed, although, since I have so little time nowadays, it has not been progressing nearly as rapidly as articles did when I worked on them over the summer. I will manage to work my way through it eventually, though.

One of the next articles on my list will probably be James, brother of Jesus, which is in a rather sorry state of disrepair right now. I always feel that James unfortunately always tends to get swept under the rug or glossed over in accounts of early Christian history, probably mainly because of that pernicious Catholic teaching of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which runs directly contrary to what it says in the gospels themselves about Jesus having had brothers. (Not that I am trying to bash Catholics in particular; it is that particular teaching, among others, that I have problems with, not with Catholics themselves as people, and there are plenty of traditional Protestant teachings that I also disagree with, like sola fide, sola scriptura, biblical literalism, and biblical inerrancy.) I also need to make sure to remember that I still have several articles that I have worked on but still have not brought up to GA status, including Proto-Indo-European religion, Utu, ancient Mesopotamian underworld, Saint Nicholas, and a number of others. I always keep forgetting to work on those before I move on and start working on other articles. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:04, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

{@Katolophyromai: I was thinking of getting the article for The Bridges of Madison County to GA; it's this best-selling novel that was dismissed by a lot of critics. Do you think that deserves to be a GA given how much it resonated with the public (over 60 million copies sold) or do you think that this article doesn't deserve to be a GA given that it's not a classic and there are classics whose articles I could work on? Just wanted to get your opinion.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 01:37, 11 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: Well, whether an article "deserves" to be a GA is determined based on the quality of the article, not on the encyclopedic importance of its subject. Generally speaking, though, articles that are of higher levels of encyclopedic vitality and articles with higher numbers of page views are usually higher on the priority list to improve than articles that are less vital or receive fewer page views. However, you are welcome to work on any article you desire and it does not matter how important or popular that article is. I wrote the article Marcellina (gnostic), which was only receiving between 0 and 6 page views a day when I started working on it and currently only receives between 5 and 10 page views per day. If you think the article is worth your time, then, by all means, devote the time to it.

Just so you know, I am currently trying to make a list of suggestions at Talk:Methuselah/GA1, but I have some other things I need to do tonight also. Hopefully I will have my list finished before I go to bed. --Katolophyromai (talk) 01:47, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

{@Katolophyromai: I expanded the "Myth" and "Symbolic' sections of the article; are you satisfied with them?MagicatthemovieS (talk) 01:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

Concerns

I believe I have attended to all of your concerns regarding the Methuselah article.MagicatthemovieS (talk) 02:15, 14 September 2018 (UTC)MagicatthemovieS

@MagicatthemovieS: Thank you very much. Those sections look much better now. I was concerned by the severely limited discussion of other extraordinarily long-lived figures from non-biblical cultures and religious traditions, but now I think you have remedied that problem. I would appreciate it if you would keep comments regarding the progress of the article on the GA review page, however. --Katolophyromai (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Ethics in the Bible

Hi Spencer, I'm Jenny. I have been following the comments at articles for deletion, and what I have concluded is that I asked the wrong person for help. :-) I was well aware this article was unfocused, disorganized, and not npov, and the topic was totally kicking my butt. It's such a big topic, I freely admitted I was having tremendous difficulty getting a handle on it. I went and asked my strictest critic if he would take a look and help me figure out how to do this better. I had no idea there were such negative preconceived ideas involved. Negativity doesn't prove neutral point of view--it can be a pov too.

I think you are correct in your views. I have two sources that say there is no formal philosophical deductive ethical system argued in the Bible but that does not mean there is no ethics in the Bible. Ethics is the study of morals, therefore, biblical ethics is the study and interpretation of those morals, as they are exactly, in the Bible.[1]:6 Bible scholar Alan Mittleman goes on to explain the Bible contains no overtly philosphical ethical theory. Instead, it uses legal texts, wise sayings, parables, and narratives, to offer rather than argue, a moral vision that is suggestive and case-based. This leaves the reader to engage intellectually with moral reasoning of their own.[2]:1–14[3] and in the lead: Ethics in the Bible is unlike other western ethical theories in that it is seldom overtly philosophical. It presents neither a systematic nor a formal deductive ethical argument. Instead, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character in what is sometimes referred to as virtue ethics. This moral reasoning is part of a broad, normative covenantal tradition where duty and virtue are inextricably tied together in a mutually reinforcing manner. Those sentences need work, I know, but they state--in sources--what you have said. You're right.

I wonder if you would be willing to share your ideas of how to structure and focus this article. If you are willing to help do the work, that's great, if not that's fine too, but I could still benefit from your ideas, I'm sure. What I told the other person I asked for help is that I am feeling lost in the fog. I had an idea of the path before I stepped into the forest, then I walked in a ways, and now all I see, everywhere, is one tree after another. I am completely lost and don't even know where to look for that lost path! You said I took it in the opposite direction of where it should go. That indicates to me you have some idea of where the path is! All I did was get sources and follow them. That led me off into the trees! Please help if you can, if you are able and willing. I will be grateful for whatever you offer. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I would recommend revisiting the advice I gave you here back in August. Apart from that advice, I have, unfortunately, not been involved in helping you and, again unfortunately, because my time is so limited now, I will probably not be able to be closely involved in the process of rewriting. However, I will help you as much as I can. I have much more time to edit on weekends than during the week, when I generally have almost no time. I also wish to clarify that I do think you did make some major improvements to the article; however, I think you made a fatal flaw in not following the advice I gave. I think that, if you had followed that advice from the beginning, it would have averted the vast majority of the problems that were brought up, both by Jytdog and by other users on the deletion page.

The first major problem with the article, at least prior to Jytdog's total evisceration of it, which seems to have been at least partially reverted by now, were the massive overgeneralizations. There were statements such as "Caring for others is a foundational principle of biblical ethics," which is partially true, but overgeneralized. There are a lot of teachings about the importance of caring for others in the gospels and the New Testament epistles, for instance, but almost nothing in, say, the Books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. The article needs to be specific and treat every book separately. Each biblical author presents his (or, since some of them are anonymous, possibly her) own perspective on ethics. Some of these perspectives directly contradict each other; others are compatible, but have different nuances and different focusses. I strongly recommend, when rewriting this article, that, instead of organizing it based on the kind of ethics being described, organize it in approximate chronological order that the texts were written and based on the biblical author whose perspective on ethics is being presented. It would also be a good idea to seek out sources dealing with specific biblical authors, such as books on Pauline or Pseudo-Pauline ethics, ethics in the Deuteronomistic History, or ethics in the Synoptic Gospels. Remember that these authors had no idea their writings would later be collected and canonized in one volume.

The second major problem was the inclusion of material about ethical systems based on later interpretations of the biblical texts. That would have been perfectly fine if the title of the article were "Ethics based on the Bible," but the title of the article is "Ethics in the Bible," which means we are only supposed to be summarizing what the Bible itself actually says. We are not supposed to be giving information on how later theologians and philosophers have reinterpreted the Bible to create new ethical systems based on it. For instance, you had a section titled "Creation and its ethical implications," which was, I think, I fine explanation of the theological and moral significance that many Christians today assign to the biblical creation story, but, if you actually read the Bible itself, there is virtually nothing in there that actually talks about any of that explicitly. We can include one kind of interpretation and that is interpretation from historians and biblical scholars regarding the original meaning of biblical passages in their original historical context and what the authors of those passages were trying to say.

I would strongly caution against seeking guidance from Jytdog on this subject. I am sure he means well, but I have grave doubts regarding his level of knowledge on this subject and he is clearly blinded by his own very strongly-held opinions. Just because someone criticizes you does not mean that criticism is constructive. Many of Jytdog's reasons given for the removal of certain sections were invalid and even contrary to policy. He writes, for instance, when removing a section on ritual purity, that "we have some basic concepts from anthropology about pure vs pollution." Ritual purity is a major component of ethics in the Torah and much of the Old Testament; just because it is a general concept common to many ancient cultures does not mean we should not talk about it in an article on ethics in the Bible. When removing a section on the ethics of war and violence, Jytdog declares, "this is about violence and not ethics per se." The ethics of violence is major part of ethics, however, and we would have to be insane or incompetent to omit mention of the bloody passages from parts of the Torah and Deuteronomistic History.

When removing a section on criminal justice, he declares, "this is gibberish conflating things "in the bible" with history. we have little to no idea about how justice was actually meted out in ancient isreal." This is misguided and wrong. First of all, if we want to understand the ethics presented in the Bible, is it absolutely paramount that we place the texts in their original historical context, which means giving historical background information is necessary and unavoidable. Second of all, we do, in fact, know some things about how "justice was actually meted out," based on surviving texts (mostly those in the Bible, ironically) as well as the legal context of the ancient Near East in general. We do not know everything, but we know enough to be able to reconstruct a basic picture. As far as I can tell, the only reason why all this seems like "gibberish" to him is because he has no interest in actually learning anything about this and would rather pretend that no one knows anything about justice in the ancient world so he can feel personally excused for not knowing anything about it himself. Now, to be perfectly clear, I do not think that any of the sections Jytdog removed were adequate in their state at the time of their removal, but I am nonetheless deeply alarmed by Jytdog’s radical dismissiveness. I think he dumped the baby out with the bathwater. A lot of the current article is probably unsalvageable, but there are parts of the current article that, with adaptation and modification, can still be shaped into something decent. I know this is a lot to read, but I hope it is helpful and I will try to assist you in what ways I am able. --Katolophyromai (talk) 19:47, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Bless you. Thank you--and it's not too long, it's just thoughtful. It's all right to say I told you so, and you may be completely right that the problem stems from trying to do this topically instead of by Testament and book. My thinking at the time was, this is an article where two large topics meet--which should I be guided by? And since I was an ethics major in college and grad school, I focused on topics in ethics instead of taking my cue from the Bible. I guess that would be more ethics and the Bible rather than ethics in the Bible, but I thought I had some flexibility in interpreting the Title. Perhaps my first mistake was not changing the title accordingly. Your approach is more in the Bible. I agree. Obviously it's impossible to do every book, but that's okay, your approach could still be done.

Whatever they end up with, I will see if I can figure out what--if--I might do anything with what's left. I am quite overwhelmed by all of this right now and considering that I am simply not cut out for the fighting and negativity on Wikipedia. I have been here a year and have had trouble with you know who on every article I have worked on from the first. He shows up everywhere I go--usually calling everything I do crap. He never acknowledges his own biases. I was trying to overcome our obstacles by asking him for help. I thought if I could gain cooperation, instead of just opposition, if we could start from a place of genuinely good faith, that his criticisms might be helpful. I think it made everything worse. Well, I appreciate that asking you for help actually produced some help! :-) Thank you. If I end up quitting WP, you should take over doing ethics. I would like to say you have been a pleasure from start to finish. Thank you for everything. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:26, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: Try not to grow discouraged. Sometimes some users can be prickly and unpleasant. Unfortunately, that includes a few prominent editors who have been around for over a decade. Not all editors are like that, though, and there are still plenty of good editors around here who are kind and respectful. I have actually often thought about leaving myself, but I figure that Wikipedia needs editors like me and that is why I have stayed around for almost two years now. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:56, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia does need editors like you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:26, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

If I can bother you one more time, I am wondering if you know how long an Afd lasts. This is my first experience with this, so I am a little lost. When is it decided that some conclusion has been reached? Who decides? I am thinking the title change would help. Who gets to make that call? Am I allowed to edit while this is going on? Should I? So far I am staying away from all of it. I placed my vote and haven't said anything else. Should I say more? Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:03, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I actually do not know exactly how long an AfD usually lasts because I have not really been involved in many of them. I think they typically last about a week or so, but I think it usually heavily depends on whether a consensus appears to be forthcoming. Given that the overwhelming majority of people who have commented on the AfD so far are opposed to deletion, I suspect that a clear consensus may be established relatively quickly in this case. I do not believe there is any policy saying anything about not editing the article while the AfD is ongoing, so I do not see any reason why you would not be allowed to edit. However, keep in mind that there may be higher levels of scrutiny during this time because the article may be receiving more attention from regular editors. --Katolophyromai (talk) 03:44, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

As it says in the AfD-banner; "Feel free to improve the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. ". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:35, 15 September 2018 (UTC)